No Returns

 

Back in the before times, if you needed a new shirt, you had to make it. Clothing, like food, furniture, shelter had to be self-made. There were no big box stores with racks of clothing shipped in from overseas and sewn together by underpaid seamstresses.

You’d have to take the old shirt apart to measure, then cut the new material, then construct it with whatever thread, string, cord or buttons that were available. If it didn’t fit, you adjusted to it or restarted.

There were no returns.

If you bought an item from a store, there were no returns. Be careful in your selection before you put down your cash. There are no takebacks in poker either.

With the innovation of delivery, an item could be delivered to your doorstep with the possibility of the milk being fresh and the newspaper dry. If what was in the box arrived broken, hours of phone calls and attempts to have the box retrieved and repaired or a replacement delivered. As products became cheaper and the quality of the construction dropped, it was easier to trash it and buy another one.

Unfortunately, today we shop online and without a close inspection of the product, we order several sizes and colors to use our bedroom as the trial dressing room only to re-box the items that did not fit or just wasn’t what you wanted and with a simple phone call a truck will pick it up and deliver it back to the warehouse.

The semi-used wearable can be repackaged and resold at discount or shipped back overseas with your stretching and sweat as bargain basement items.

You can figure out the billing later.

What would happen if relationships had No Returns?

No break-ups. No divorces. No Redoes. No Take backs.

It would certainly make ‘dating’ and ‘marriage’ more adventurous. When you make a vow, you can’t go back and say, “I was just kidding”. Though we are fickle creatures with wandering eyes, when we make an emotional promise to another, should we stick with it? Try signing for a loan and not paying for it. Pledge a commitment before trying to renege on the deal.

Mostly we blurt out words without thinking and then must face the reactions. Copulation may seem pleasant at the time, but the consequences have no returns.

This could eliminate Yard Sales and Pawn Shops. You buy it, you keep it. (Or repackage it for Christmas?)